It has been a while since I posted. We have been busy as you can imagine.

John is growing, growing, growing. Getting fatter by the day! Look at that double chin.

He is sleeping well in the night and loves all the attention that he gets during the day.

Here he is with his daddy.

And I had to include one picture where he was awake. I was trying to get a picture of his great big smile, but the camera batteries died as soon as I turned it on. Maybe next time.

Meme, Dane's mother, made and then mailed to us four beautiful blankets for John, three of which have matching buntings and hats. John has been so cozy in them when the temperatures have dropped, and everyone who has seen them has been quite impressed with them. I think Sue "Meme" could make a successful business out of sewing, she really is a very talented seamstress.

This picture is to give a better perspective of what the buntings look like.

The children started their school year the last week in April. Everyone has settled into the new routine and is doing very well. Here are all the scholars at work.

We finally received a couple days of rain! We are so thankful for this provision. The creek and spring are full and we are again doing our laundry out here on the farm. Praise the Lord!

With the drought, our little spring really slowed down. We got to where we were only getting about 100 liters of water a day out of it and most of that was going to the cows. So Dane started concentrating most of his efforts on making a new road into our property so that we could get a bull dozer out here to help make a road to the river before the spring slowed down any more than that.

Dane, some helpers, and Elijah, and David spent a few weeks cleaning up the limit and then Dane hired a guy with a bull dozer to come down it and move some big rocks and clean it up even more. Well the bull dozer was too small to accomplish the task, so that work didn't continue.

Despite this setback, Dane was able to obtain permission from one of the other neighbors to use and improve an old cart trail on his property as a road into our place. Dane then shifted his efforts to this road and it is now nearly completed! Though it still needs more work, we drove in and out of it for the first time yesterday, and what an improvement over our existing boulder road that can only be passed with a four by four vehicle.

One day during the cleanup of the steepest part of the new road, Dane turned over the tractor and was squished between the tractor and a large tree. He had some bruising under his arms and around his chest and had some road rash on his back, but thankfully he didn't have any broken bones and didn't miss a day of work!

While Dane and the boys were working along the limit, they found this strange fruit. The locals call it oveña (pronounced oveinya). It tastes like a cross between an apple and a pecan nut. I have made a few coffee cakes and sprinkled the fruit on top and they were very tasty.

We finally got a new 12volt freezer that Dane ordered from another province. It worked great for about three days and then stopped producing ice, so Dane had to take it to town to be repaired. Thankfully the freezer is under warranty. In the meantime, we are storing our milk and yogurt in a tank that Dane bought to haul water from town as needed during the drought. When it began to look like rain, Dane hurriedly installed a rain gutter on our roof and put the tank under it to catch the water. With the cool nights, the rain water stays relatively cool and helps to perserve the dairy products a little longer.

A couple of our hens hatched some chicks and another is sitting, so the chicken flock is growing.

One of the advantages of getting up early in the morning is getting to see the sunrise everyday. Dane got a picture of this beautiful sunrise on a recent cloudy morning.

It is time for enjoying winter squash. This is a huge one that one of our neighbors gave to us. It took us a week to eat the whole thing. Another neighbor told Dane to come get squash anytime because he had more stored than he knew what to do with. Our winter squash didn't do so well, so we are very thankful that our neighbors are willing to share their bounty.

Also its mandarine orange season now. Our trees are full despite the fact that the trees prematurely dropped a lot of their oranges during the drought. We are really enjoying the fruit.

And if this picture of a tarantula on the toe of Dane's boot doesn't make you want to check the inside of your shoes before you slide your foot in, I don't know what would!

Well I hope this catches you all up on what we have been doing. I will try not to delay the next post so much.

Until next time,

Jessica